UK to tax private schools to raise money for public education
LONDON
The U.K. will end a tax exemption for private schools this week, the centre-left Labour government has announced, in a move set to raise over £1.5 billion ($1.9 billion) for public education.
After years of worsening educational inequalities, from Jan. 1, private schools will have to pay 20 percent value added tax on tuition fees, which will be used to fund thousands of new teachers and improve standards in state schools.
"It's time things are done differently," Finance Minister Rachel Reeves said in a statement yesterday.
The funding will "go towards our state schools where 94 percent of this country's children are educated", she said.
The policy was promised by Labour in its election campaign and officially laid out in its inaugural budget in October.
It hopes the move will bring in 1.5 billion pounds for the 2025/2026 school year and rise to 1.7 billion pounds a year by 2029/2030, which will be used to fund 6,500 new teachers in the public sector.
Tuition fees in private schools already average 18,000 pounds a year.
That figure is set to rise, with the government estimating that tuition fees will increase by around 10 percent, with schools taking on part of the additional cost.
Opponents of the reform say state school enrolment will explode if the private sector is lost, increasing the cost to the government.
But studies contradict this.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies calculated that the number of children in state schools will actually fall by 2030 due to a projected population decline.
